


smile.dog

by Mikato_Dragos



Category: MoonyVR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29580303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikato_Dragos/pseuds/Mikato_Dragos
Summary: More experimentation with the Moony in Black/Moon Wick world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> smile.dog  
> by Magi 'PTO' Democrati, Mikato Dragos and Retujy Democrati
> 
> Based on the copypasta of the same name.

'I walk a lonely road,  
The only one that I have ever known.   
Don't know where it goes,  
But it's home to me and I walk alone.'

Green Day drips through your ZF IEMs, distracting you from the largely empty bus (the 120, from somewhere outside Prague to somewhere inside there; your destination is nondescript). A little kid looks at you - the thought must occur to him, why are you so antisocial? No. You have friends - you're going to see one right now, in fact. The plastic seat refuses to hold any warmth, and you're left in the air-conditioner-induced typhoon of cold air. It feels like the kid is at the eye of the storm.

Ding! 'A really rather boring place in the middle of nowhere', a metallic recording plays. Well, it doesn't really play that, but the quote covers the point just fine. It's your stop, and you walk down the aisle, disregarding the boy's stares even as the bus pulls away. Instead, the staunch apartment complex, a row of ten flats by three floors, prompts you to set off on an adventure - an adventure to find where your friend is lodging. You don't know how to navigate this, for the simple reason that you lived in an actual house. Your parents died a few years ago, though the popo never found the bodies; at least they left you a roof and some dough.

2F, chat history tells you. That must be on the second floor, and you climb the dirty concrete stairs. They're stained with water, dead bug carcasses, and gum that even now keeps the signature dark yellow of the Moonshine products. The company went bust three years ago.

Brass-plated lettering on the nearest door reads 2A; you've got a long way ahead of you. The fence is rusted, a few bars bent here and there. Perhaps it was a dog, wanting to escape. A clunking sound is quite near, you realise. Not as in the street's honking cars near, but as in upstairs near. It must be someone doing construction. 2F, 2F, 2F... there it is.

You knock on the whitewashed door, the paint already flaking down, and May Barlow opens it. She's pretty as always, her long brown hair tied up in a ponytail that exposes her ocean eyes. 'Good evening, May!' you say, hugging her. 'Ah! Hello, [y/n]!' she replies, perhaps a little bit tersely. Tersely? She seems a little disheveled, sure, but she's never a stiff sorta person. 'Please, come in', she says, and you obey, ducking through the frame into a cramped two-room apartment - a bedroom-cum-livingroom and a washroom. The suitcase open and stuffed tells you she's not started unpacking yet.

'How're you?' you ask May. The answer's going to be 'good' - she always answers that. You've been friends with her ever since seventh grade, when you disclosed that the class bully had hidden her bag in the janitor's closet. Despite her dark past, she's a cheerful Pollyanna.

'Not good. Listen', she commands when you start to ask why, 'I have... hallucinations that I try to attack. I need to be alone, okay?'

The one who eventually became a pop singer, saying she'd like to be alone? That's new. But what isn't, is her maturity, and you know - or at least push to the front of your mind - that she'll be okay. You look at her face for a few seconds, hesitating, but when she forces a smile, you presently return a nod and walk out with a 'stay safe.'

So that's why she visited the Czech Republic. Away from anybody in the UK who might try to visit her. She had to tell you, otherwise you'd become suspicious - but she still refused your offer to live at your place. It must have been the stress of the job getting to her.

Bom. Bom. Bom.

The strikes of a hammer have returned. You wonder what they're doing. There's not much point in renovating a broken-down house. It seems to be coming from the third floor. Luckily, the penthouses - if they are even worthy of that term - each have a small window facing the corridor, and you walk through, listening carefully.  
It seems to get closer and closer - then further away again, as you reach the end, 3J. Not here, and you turn around. Neither 3I nor 3H. You pause at 3G, but the lights are off and there's nobody inside. How about 3F? There's a curtain blocking the way, but it's just a repurposed face-towel, not enough to cover the edges. You peer inside. There's a tall, long-haired woman leaning over the floor. A metal cone, an inch into the concrete, acts like a tuning fork, its rings ever so subtle. What is she trying to do? A contraption lays beside her. It's made of cheap piping, a grey glass bauble adorning one end. What are the wires exiting the other for? Is she trying to electrocute May?

Wait. It's an overcomplicated camera. She's planning to drill a hole through the flats, then use the device as a makeshift periscope. Another goddamn stalker. They're as common as the months of the year. You dodge away, even as the banging continues, before walking down the corridor slowly. You need to warn May.

The door, thankfully, opens, and your friend steps out. 'What do you want?' she asks, maybe angrily, but she follows your motion to go outside. To the backdrop of the noise, you whisper to her the things going on upstairs.

She's shaky, and leans against the wall for support. 'My hallucinations - you can see them?' 'May', you explain, 'I think you were seeing a real person that nobody noticed.' 'Then what should I do?' 'Come to my house.'

The police are useless in this country; it's no good telling them. You pull out the house key from your backpack, and hand it to her.

'Don't worry, I'll pro-' 'NO!' she refuses... 'sorry, I just need to be alone, okay?' 'Alright, I'll stay here then. I know those types; they'll just leave once you're gone.'

May lugs out her suitcase, hands you the apartment key, and then rushes down the stairs, hailing a taxi. She's been to your house before, in better times. You enter the apartment - your apartment, now - and lock the door, before sitting on the bed.

There's nothing to do, so you turn on your iPhone 8. The time - 9pm - shows up, though hardl visible against the background of white flowers. They both fade away after the home button approves your Touch ID, letting you in.

You thumb hovers over PUBG for a moment, before you go to Photos. A scary picture of a dog, its bulging eyes and bloody smiling mouth jeering at you, almost makes you drop your phone. A prankster from an anonymous number sent you this. You really should delete this - but it might come in useful to jumpscare other people later.

Anyway - that's not what you came for. You scroll to a photo of May and you, in high school. She has shorter hair, and her school uniform's a bit too small, but she grins as she poses next to you. What happened to her? Every other photo, your mind returns to the same thing. You aren't being comforted by this.

You dump the phone down in frustration, laying there on the bed. Why do people have to harass other people? Why does May have to be constantly traumatized by overzealous fanatics? Why isn't anybody doing anything?

A soft crack, both in your mind and the air. Your eyes flicker to the right, where a small hole has been made; the tip of the cone sticks out, but it soon withdraws. 

The camera takes its place, before - it too retreats. The criminal must have noticed you're not May. You wonder what they'll do next.

Knock, knock.

You open the door subconciously, before thinking that you shouldn't. However, the girl standing outside doesn't attack you, and instead bows deeply. 'I'm sorry', she declares, 'I dropped something that was for a school project. Please don't tell the landlord.'

So that's the excuse she's going with, huh. But telling the landlord wouldn't have any effect, partially because you don't have the wrecker's contact information and partially because every landlord is a lazy sonuvabitch. You merely nod in agreement, and she tells you, 'I'll be leaving tomorrow, thank you so much!'

Good riddance, you think, as she leaves. She won't know where to find May, since your house is not registered under her target's name. As you close the door, you know that the problem is solved - and you suddenly feel sleepy.

It's nine thirty. You need to sleep: you've got an exam tomorrow. You lay on the bed and fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up in the middle of the night. The lights are off, and everything's silent. There's light streaming from the hole in the celing. What's she doing? It's very late - oh, and your phone won't turn on.

You exit stealthily, shuffling along the corridor. It's eerie, almost, without the streetlights. They''re all broken in this part of the city. Not even a lone car drifts by. You've only got the faint moonlight - or rather, the light pollution. The city center is invisible, but the sky glows.

A shadow seems to slither, out of the corner of your eye. You whirl around - it's nothing. You walk to 3F. The curtain completely covers the window, this time.  
The knock echoes around the complex. Nobody answers. You knock again. The door clicks open.

A body lies on the floor. It's covered with blood. There's an animal there, and it whisks towards you. It's the smile dog. You stare at its bloody jaws - you need to go, you try to close the door - but it doesn't budge, and the pawsteps, they make you - jump over the fence, it stings, your ankle's broken, you can't move -

and the monster jumps down, the slow drip of its drool matching with its slow pace. It knows it's got you now.

It gets closer and closer.

It smells of sulphur.

It smells you, your legs, your arms.

The exhales from its nostrils burn, as much as the tension. Just bite me already, you want to yell, but your throat dries. You can't move.

It seems to have taken a liking to your right hand -

then bites it.

Crunch.

It hurts. As if someone replaced your blood with acid. As if someone superheated that acid. As if you can't die...

..

.


	3. Chapter 3

You wake up, your hand still throbbing. It was a dream, and your phone turns on this time. Half past seven. Time to get breakfast. You unlock the door. The monster isn't there, but there's a few people milling about. You like how the trucks make noise. You're alive.

You look down at your hand. Eight small scars line up in a row. Eight on the other side, too. You didn't have those before. But everything has a prosaic explanation. You probably just gripped it really hard or got your skin entangled in something.

You catch a glimpse of the black-haired girl as she drags her suitcase, and you hope she won't be coming back. Maybe she attacked you.

You're thinking too much. You order a coffee and a bagel from a local cafe, before mowing them down. You feel refreshed, already - really.

A scene from the television gets your attention. Apparently a house burned down last night. It was - 

No way.

'The sole inhabitant, presumably the owner, died in the fire.'

No.

'An anonymous source says there was a black-haired woman near the house.' 

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

You trudge to university.

...

Everybody dies -

and May was going crazy anyway, wasn't she? 

She lived a good life.


	4. Chapter 4

'Here we have a molecule of uranium', the professor reads off the presentation slides, 'and if you look closely you'll see that-'

'Professor!' a man yells, stumbling in. He went to the bathroom just a moment ago. 'What's the matter, Nanby?' the teacher replies. 'There's a monster chasing me!' he slams the door shut in fear. 'Nanby, you're seeing things. Go to the nurse's-' 'No! It's com-'

BANG.

A sticky tentacle bursts through the door, grabbing the guy's head - before popping it, the blood dripping onto the floor. Is this a hallucination or - a girl screams. Everybody starts running to the other door.

It's locked.

A brawny student shoves the door, to no avail. The other door slams open, the many appendages creeping in like the ink from the devil's pen.

A single white dot appears in the darkness that covers the classroom. 

A deep voice speaks.

'You have one minute to find the exit.'

Everybody scrambles.

But you don't move.

It's just like that dream with the dog. The only way to escape - is through letting the thing win. 

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One...

...

The spikes shift out from the rails, impaling your classmates. Nobody's managed to find the exit. Then why are you still alive - unhurt? Its attention is on the gory remains of the first death. You grab a compass and ram the sharp end into a tentacle.

The monster doesn't bleed.

It merely turns around, looking at you.

'You...' it says in that slow voice, 'have already been chosen.'

What does that mean? You want answers, and jab your weapon into the onyx again and again - 

until something whacks you in the head -

and everything fades to black.


	5. Chapter 5

You awake in the apartment. It's dark.

It's probably a dream, since you were just at university - but then that, too, was also probably a dream.

Either way, both events happened after you left your room. If you just stay here, you'll be fine. You reach over for the blanket that always lies at the foot of the bed. It's pleasingly warm. You wonder why it's warm; you never turned on the heater in your house. But then again, this is a different house -

With no blanket.

It's the monster that turns around and smiles at you - 

before lunging forward and - 

tearing your goddamn finger off.

It stings like a thousand fire ants crawling into your blood vessels.

'Next time, your life will be taken.'

The pain takes over.


	6. Chapter 6

You wake up.

That was a dream, wasn't it? You uncover your hand. Your pinky finger is missing, the stump like an insult. It - something - will kill you the next time you fall unconscious.

You realise you're in a hospital bed. A middle-aged woman hurries to you. 'Dearie, good morning. Are you feeling all right?' 'Yeah...' you tentatively assure, 'what happened?' 'You needn't concern yourself, dearie. You deserve to take a rest.'

'What happened,' you repeat.

She hesitates, but concedes, explaining 'a serial killer attacked your university yesterday. He killed everybody in your class, but it's lucky you survived.' 'Have they caught the killer? 'The police haven't said anything yet.' 'Thank you for telling me.' 'You're welcome, dear.'

Your caretaker seems very nice. 'How long have I been here?' 'Twelve hours - I took care of your wounds, dear.' 'Thank you - I couldn't do what you did.' 'Have some respect for your elders, won't you?' she asks gaily, and you chuckle.

Another nurse steps in. 'Ah! You're awake!' she says.

She looks awfully familiar.

'May?'

'Yep!

'Oh! You two must be friends. I will leave you to it, then...'

'Wait!'

Then - May's bright voice changes to something more sinister. 'You forgot about the immolation.'

Invisible knives slice through the air, slitting the senior's body. The blood splashes through your thin blanket. It's oddly hot. It's not May; it's a monster.

May speaks.

'You have been chosen.'

That line again.

She jumps out of the window.

The police come later, and knock you out with their batons. 

You don't resist them.


	7. Chapter 7

The apartment.

You know what?

'Take me.'

To the smiling dog that is everywhere. 

Lose yourself.

You don't know what's happening, but in death everything and everybody is equal. 

You're done with trying to "understand" what the fuck is so fucked-up with the world. 

It's too much.

'Goddamn take me already!' you yell.

The framed picture of the demon sits there, tauntingly.

'Do you want me to ravish you?'

The same voice that appeared last time.

There's a new - no, it's the same, but in a different form. A humanoid, but with fox ears and that horrific smile, glazed with the poison of realgar wine.

'Kill me.' you command.

'Really, kid?'

He's a sadist. Denying you everything.

'Don't you have things you wanna know - like what it means to be chosen?'

'I won't care when I'm dead, will I?' you snap back.

He pushes you to the side. Not roughly, and not to kill you. He just lies down next to you, enjoying the view of grey. Not that it'd be any prettier if he was looking out the window.

'I come from a land called Calalini.'

You get the feeling he's doing this more for his own benefit than yours.

'There are many beasts there. They have special abilities; the specifics don't mater. We feed on human life, but our abilities can only be used in certain situations.'

'Why are you telling me this?' you demand, but he doesn't answer.

'I was once a human, like you. But I kept clinging to life - and the Devil gave me power.' 

'If you're trying to convince me to sell my soul, I'm not doing it.'

'You're much smarter than me. I regret it.' 

'And you're trying to what - apologize?' 

'Demons hunger, child. We do not want to die.' 

'Fuck you.'

'Don't you wonder why there are so many monsters?' 

You have to admit yes.

'An oil baron recently inherited a company; he'll destroy the human race, and without your souls, we'll go down. I want you to kill him for me, [y/n]. I have power over my dimension of Dreamland. I can get you there.'

'I'm not a priest. I can't absolve you. Neither am I an antivillain. I just want to not think.'

'Do it for the human race.'

'Big talk for something that spends its time tormenting the people it's now claiming to save.' 

...

'You know, I chose you because I wanted to save you. We choose our victims, and other demons cannot touch them. The devil made that rule to prevent infighting. There are worse things out there than me - demons that'll use your body as a puppet, demons that'll trap you in a decaying body, demons that'll make you burn your immortal body over and over and over again. I was protecting you.'

'...okay. I'll die anyway, so I might as well do something.'

'...thanks.'

He gets off, and opens the door for you. It's to a posh mansion room, and he hands you a shotgun.

You kill the target; the gun doesn't misfire.

'What's your name?' you ask, as the smile dog man envelops your lightening body in his fading arms.

'Moon.' 

Fucking hell.


	8. Chapter 8

You've been plagued with nightmares ever since your dog, Moon, left.

They're a metaphor for something, but you can't understand how to interpret them. You turn on your phone. It's half past six in the morning.

Ping!

'Netflix has a surprise for you: a free download of a movie we're sure you'll like!' 

Your uncle gave you a Netflix gift card.

The app opens dramatically, before revealing its recommendation with a flourish - 

Inception.

You knew you should've stuck with Kissanime.

But then you'd be reminded of Moon.

Of the nights you two watched anime together.

You're insufferable; life's insufferable.

You have nobody willing to understand you, much less help you.

But you just keep going.

You realise - just like Moon.

'My shadow's the only one who walks beside me.   
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.   
Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me.   
'Til then I walk alone.'


End file.
